Grandparents

A 13-year-old boy who reportedly became enraged after his grandparents called his mother a “whore” shot and killed the couple in their home in Pennsylvania and was being held without bond Tuesday on murder charges, police said. The shooting occurred Sunday afternoon in Sandycreek Township, a town about 70 miles north of Pittsburgh, and left George Fross, 69, and his wife Dorothy Fross, 67, dead. Police found the bodies Monday night after relatives became concerned they could not reach the couple and phoned police, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

Several Colorado fourth-graders face disciplinary action for bringing their grandparents' legally purchased pot to school and apparently selling it to a few classmates, according to school officials. The pupils, three 10-year-old boys and a 10-year-old girl at Monfort Elementary School in Greeley, took the pot to school Monday for resale on campus, officials said. The marijuana appears to have been legally purchased by adults -- grandparents in two families -- and no charges were expected to be filed, John Gates, director of safety for Weld County School District 6, told reporters, according to the Associated Press.

SAN FRANCISCO -- The grandparents of slain Dodger fan Jonathan Denver released a statement Friday that expressed devastation at their loss and stressed that Denver and his father were "calm, level-headed personalities and ... not the type to initiate an altercation. " Robert Sr. and Anne Marie Preece, of Covina, asked for privacy and said that "until we have some time with our son, we will not have clear details on what ensued -- only that everything went bad very quickly.

Enormous public resources go to foster families and group homes, and those expenditures are appropriate because the county and state are the virtual guardians for thousands of abused and neglected children. As such, the state and the county are duty-bound to ensure that the children receive proper care and, despite any mistreatment at home and despite the turmoil of being sent to live with strangers, are put on a pathway toward a successful adulthood. But Los Angeles County also places thousands more abused or neglected children not with foster families or group homes but with their own grandparents and other relatives, and that's a good thing; numerous studies over many years show that such children do better in the long run than those in foster care - if those family members have the money to properly clothe and care for the children.

They are the unsung heroes for countless high school athletes. They show up to games day or night. They offer unconditional support in good and bad times. When mom or dad is angry, they are the ones called upon to be arbitrators of common sense. Yes, grandparents make invaluable contributions, so let me tell the story of shotputter Naomi Grant of Fullerton Troy. When Grant was 5 months old, her mother, Vida Owens, died after suffering an infection. Her grandparents, David and Claudette Owens, took over as parents.

There are tattoos - like everywhere but on Betty White , I think - and then there are tattoos . Matt Kemp already had his share, but now he has one that you're not going to find at your local ink shop. Kemp has had a tattoo added of grandparents Doris and Vernon Mukes that takes up his entire left pectoral. The tribute is not only huge, but artistically, pretty impressive. It's not known how Doris feels about the new tat. She complained to Sports Illustrated in 2011 that she was less than thrilled with Kemp's skin artwork.

A man from Washington state is wanted for killing his grandparents sometime over the weekend after coming home from prison and may be looking for gun shows to get a weapon, officials said. The King County Sheriff's Office is looking for Michael "Chad" Boysen, 26, who had just served a nine-month sentence for a burglary conviction. Local media identified the victims as Robert and Norma Taylor, both in their 80s. Their car, a red Chrysler, was missing after their bodies were discovered at their Renton home on Saturday, and Boysen, who had been released from prison on Friday, was identified as the prime suspect.

As American parents have grappled with financial peril and other woes over the last decade, grandparents have stepped in to help. Grandparents were the main caregivers for more than 3 million children in 2011 - a 20% increase from the turn of the millennium, the Pew Research Center reported Wednesday. The numbers surged during the economic downturn and have leveled off in its aftermath, Pew said in a report based on an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. Sixty percent of those children still have at least one parent at home, but grandparents are responsible for most of their needs.

Next to the love of their parents, the grandparent-grandchild bond is the most emotionally powerful relationship children have, experts say in a recent Mayo Clinic Health Letter. Three-quarters of all Americans over 65 are grandparents, and it's projected that half of today's grandparents will someday be great-grandparents. There is little to guide grandparents on how to create positive relationships with their grandchildren, experts note. Even so, most do a great job.

Several Colorado fourth-graders face disciplinary action for bringing their grandparents' legally purchased pot to school and apparently selling it to a few classmates, according to school officials. The pupils, three 10-year-old boys and a 10-year-old girl at Monfort Elementary School in Greeley, took the pot to school Monday for resale on campus, officials said. The marijuana appears to have been legally purchased by adults -- grandparents in two families -- and no charges were expected to be filed, John Gates, director of safety for Weld County School District 6, told reporters, according to the Associated Press.

The grandparents of a fatally injured 8-year-old Palmdale boy, whose history of alleged physical abuse has prompted a sweeping review of Los Angeles' child welfare system, have sued, accusing officials of missing repeated opportunities to save the child. The complaint naming the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services asserts that more than 60 reports of abuse involving Gabriel Fernandez were lodged with the agency. But only five to eight investigations were initiated, the suit says, and none of those met the department's own requirements for thoroughness.

The knock came on an afternoon in early September 1993, after Billy Watson returned home from the Los Angeles County Fair. "I opened the door and there was a baby in a little carrier on the doorstep," Watson recalls. "It was like something you see in the movies. Then I stepped outside and saw this girl running across the street. It was my daughter. " At first, Watson was mad. He and his wife, Janice, had their hands full with a 3-year-old son, Billy Jr. Now their troubled 15-year-old daughter was leaving them her infant son - their grandson.

Mexican consulate officials are working to bring up two sets of grandparents to help care for the 9-year-old boy who lost his parents and three siblings in a car crash this week in Lodi. Eden Miranda remained in critical condition Thursday after a multi-vehicle crash two days earlier killed his entire family, including his pregnant mother. Carlos González Gutiérrez, the Mexican consul general in Sacramento, told the Sacramento Bee that the situation was "particularly sad. " "This is a typical immigrant family that comes here to work in the field in order to provide a better future for their kids.

SAN FRANCISCO -- The grandparents of slain Dodger fan Jonathan Denver released a statement Friday that expressed devastation at their loss and stressed that Denver and his father were "calm, level-headed personalities and ... not the type to initiate an altercation. " Robert Sr. and Anne Marie Preece, of Covina, asked for privacy and said that "until we have some time with our son, we will not have clear details on what ensued -- only that everything went bad very quickly.

As American parents have grappled with financial peril and other woes over the last decade, grandparents have stepped in to help. Grandparents were the main caregivers for more than 3 million children in 2011 - a 20% increase from the turn of the millennium, the Pew Research Center reported Wednesday. The numbers surged during the economic downturn and have leveled off in its aftermath, Pew said in a report based on an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. Sixty percent of those children still have at least one parent at home, but grandparents are responsible for most of their needs.

Authorities on Thursday were still investigating how two young boys were shot dead in their grandparents' house in southern Ohio. No suspects are being sought in connection with the deaths of Austin Wiseman, 12, and Blake Campbell, 9, Jackson County Police Chief Carl Eisnaugle said in a statement. The boys' grandparents discovered the their bodies Wednesday after the boys had been left home alone at the grandparents' home in Jackson. "Although the investigation is continuing, Jackson police are not searching at this time for any other persons who might have been directly connected to the incident," the statement said.

My mother married my father, a violent and abusive man, when she was 17 — a week after she graduated from high school. We fled from him when I was 5, showing up at my grandparents' house during a thunderstorm. The memory of that night comes to me in flashes. I remember feeling scared and confused. We stood in their living room right by the front door, and I didn't realize that I was trembling until my grandmother wrapped her steady arms around me. In the months that followed, while my mother went to vocational school to learn a trade to support us, my grandparents stepped up to the plate.

In 1994, a boy vanished from LaGrange County, Ind., allegedly whisked away by his paternal grandparents, who worried where a court might place their grandson. Authorities at the time issued arrest warrants for the grandparents, and descriptions of 5-year-old Richard Wayne Landers Jr. landed in missing-children databases. Charges were filed. But in 2008, Indiana authorities dropped the charges against Landers' grandparents after failing to locate them or the now-grown boy. Last fall, Landers reappeared -- alive, married and living in rural Browerville, Minn.

Bessie Clayborne has big dreams for her grandson Malcolm. She has been raising the 6-year-old since he was a newborn, when, she says, his mother was jailed and his father - Clayborne's son - shirked all parental responsibility. Clayborne, who's had eight children of her own over the decades, says Malcolm was 3 days old when she picked him up from the hospital and police officers took his mother away. "I wasn't going to let him be out there with somebody" in foster care, the 83-year-old South Los Angeles resident said.

Two families, both loving and stable, are vying to adopt a 4-year-old girl with strawberry blond hair and large blue eyes. One is certain to be broken-hearted. The tug of war began in May 2011, when Los Angeles County child protection authorities took the girl away from her drug-addicted mother and placed her in a foster home. Five weeks later, her paternal grandparents found out and moved to get her back. But the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services sat on the couple's paperwork for nearly a year, according to a claim they have filed against the county.